Towering until she seemed to increase in stature by inches, she aimed a long and bony finger dead ahead. "Ax dat slinky yaller man up yonder on dat flatfo'm ef he gwine give de order to th'ow me out!" she clarioned in a voice which rose to a compelling shriek. "But fust off ax him whut he meant--marryin' me in Mobile, Alabama, an' den runnin' 'way frum his lawful wedded wife under cover of de night! Ax him--dat's all, ax him!" "An' ax him one thing mo'!" It was the voice of her short companion rising above the tumult. "Ax him whut he done wid de funds of de s'ciety he 'stablished at Little Rock, Arkansaw, all of w'ich he absconded wid dis last spring!" As though the same set of muscles controlled every neck the heads of all swung about, their eyes following where the accusers pointed, their ears twitching for the expected blast of denial and denunciation which would wither these mad and scandalous detractors in their tracks. Alas and alackaday! With his splendid figure suddenly all diminished and shrunken, with distress writ large and plain upon his features, the popular idol was step by step flinching backward from the edge of the platform--was step by step inching, edging toward the side door in the right-hand wall. And in this same instant the stunned assemblage realized that Jeff Poindexter, by nimble maneuvering, had thrust himself between the retreating figure and the exit, and Jeff was crying out: "Not dis way out, Doct' Duvall. Not dis way! The one you married down below Macon is waitin' fur you behin' dis do'!" The doctor stopped in midflight and swung about and his eye fell upon the right-hand door and he moved a yard or two in that direction; but no more than a yard or two, for again Jeff spoke in warning, halting him short: "Not dat way neither! The one frum dat other town whar you uster live is waitin' outside dat do'--wid a pistil! Seems lak you's entirely s'rounded by wives dis evenin'!"